PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 15, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Wednesday on the News Hour, aid trucks enter Gaza as the tenuous Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal holds, and both Gazans and Israelis take stock of what they've lost. The Supreme Court hears a Louisiana redistricting case that challenges a key part of the Voting Rights Act. Plus, how students and teachers are faring in Arizona's school voucher program that could soon be adopted across the nation. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, aid trucks enter devastated Gaza as the tenuous Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal holds, and both Ghazans and Israelis take stock of what they've lost. The U.S. Supreme Court hears a Louisiana redistricting case that challenges a key part of the Voting Rights Act. And how students and teachers are faring in Arizona's school voucher program. that could soon be adopted across the nation. I'm the canary in the coal mine. I can tell them what's going to be 10 years from now,

because I'm living it. Welcome to the news hour. The slow process of returning dead Israeli hostages home continued today, as the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling the return of hostage remains promised in the ceasefire deal. Hamas and the Red Cross say Israel's destruction in Gaza has made their recovery nearly impossible.

And as Leila Malana Allen reports again tonight, Palestinians who survived the war are returning to ruins where their homes once stood. As the skies fell silent in Gaza after a long-awaited ceasefire, the clearing smoke revealed a post-apocalyptic scene, once bustling neighbourhoods full of life, now a sea of rubble.

Bodies of the people who once lived here scattered along Gaza's seashore as emergency workers attempted to identify their decayed remains and restore their dignity in death. While bulldozers have begun clearing the crushed and hollow ruins of this besieged enclave, once buzzing with life and community, For many Gazans, there is little left to salvage.

Our home was targeted and demolished about a month ago. We were displaced to Dar al-Balach. We came back to the house yesterday, and we expected to finally return to a home to shelter us, but it was completely destroyed. Mohamed Zaku has finally returned to his home in Gaza City after being forced to flee south in the face of Israel's assault. But in place of his house that was filled with love

and laughter, all he found left was a crumbling concrete husk. Our memories are gone. All our dreams are gone. Our childhood is gone. I'm trying to see what I can pull out of the rubble. It's all burnt now. All these burnt clothes. It feels like there's no point trying anymore because it's all destroyed. As Garzans try to rebuild their lives in the ash-covered ruins left by two years of relentless Israeli bombardment. Here in Israel, having threatened yesterday to limit desperately needed aid supplies, this morning the government allowed a lifeline into the occupied strip, trucks bearing food, water and medical supplies. But the resumption of aid deliveries and the ceasefire itself is shaky

at best. Israel is demanding Hamas release the last of the bodies of deceased hostages still in Gaza, even as Israelis celebrate the war's end and mourn the loss of loved ones. Moshelahi's brother-in-law, Omri Miran, was taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7th and finally returned home alive on Monday. But his community will never forget those they lost. He's in a stable condition and he will heal both the physical wounds and the mental scars will heal with time as much as possible. We as a family will continue to support Omri, Lishai and the girls as they become a family again.

We have to keep fighting for the remaining hostage families and ensure that everyone has a closure. Do you believe in this ceasefire deal and what are the challenges you now see ahead for your family, your country, this region? I trust that our society will be able to rebuild and heal once we close this chapter of the return of the hostages. And when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these cease-fellation. is not going to solve the conflict. I believe that eventually we will find a resolution to our conflict. I don't know whether it will be in my lifetime, but I will work with anybody who want to find a resolution.

Both Israelis, healing from Hamas' terror attack and the ensuing hostage crisis, and Palestinians trapped by war and occupation and tormented by two years of harrowing death and destruction. This fragile piece holds long enough for them to begin to move beyond the shadow of October 7th, to rebuild, to hope for a brighter future. The hope for civilians on both sides of the border here, but there's a long road ahead till they can get there. Jeff? And this initially seemed like a fairly straightforward agreement. What has made this process more challenging than expected?

It did seem straightforward, the bodies of all the living and. and deceased hostages were to be returned within 72 hours of this agreement being signed. There was a stipulation in that agreement that all the bodies that Hamas knew their whereabouts would be returned, and then they could give information to Israel and the US about where they thought other bodies might be for assistance. What happened is that on Monday the 20 living hostages came back, and then in the evening just four of the 28 bodies of the dead hostages were returned. That prompted a huge outcry from Israeli society, from the hostages' families, saying that that wasn't what they expected. That means that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been under incredible pressure to get the rest of the bodies back as quickly as possible.

Hamas has returned to other bodies in the last few days, and when those bodies were identified, it turned out that one was not even an Israeli hostage, but in fact the body of a Garzan person. Now, President Trump has put a huge amount of pressure on Hamas as well to get all those bodies back, but he did today's speech. to reporters in the Oval Office acknowledge just how difficult this job is. He said they're digging through the rubble. They're trying to find these bodies. It's a horrible job and they don't know when they'll get there. So he seems to be trying to make this deal hold long enough that Hamas is able to return all the hostage bodies it can.

They have confirmed that thus far they've returned everyone they know their whereabouts and they need more time to search. So remind us what comes next in this peace plan and how realistic is this next stage given the situation on the ground? situation on the ground. Well, the problem here, of course, is there is this huge Trump 20-point peace plan from the president that we're looking at. But most of that hasn't actually been negotiated. All that's been negotiated here is this very first phase. Now, there was a really telling quote last

week from the Prime Minister of Qatar who said after that deal was signed. He said, if we tried to go for full negotiation of this peace plan, we would never have got a deal. Now, this evening, speaking to reporters, officials in the White House confirmed that they are still in that deconfliction phase. They are still focusing on getting all the hostages out and getting aid into Gaza. But what comes next is incredibly complicated and none of it has been confirmed. Firstly, will Hamas demilitarize? Will they lay down their arms? They have not confirmed that they will do so. And Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel says that there is no way this deal will go ahead unless they do. Secondly, will the IDF really withdraw and to hand over to this

international stabilization force that hasn't really been particularly identified yet how it's going to take form. Right now they are pulling back to half of the strip, 53%. They're then supposed to pull back to a further 40%, and then a buffer zone in the long term. But that really isn't clear whether or not they will be able to pull back to that point and whether that international stabilization force will be able to control Hamas. Thirdly, we have the reconstruction issue.

They have so much rubble to clear to try to try. and build homes to try and make Gaza liveable again. And then after that happens, what is the future of Gaza, what's the future of the Palestinian territories, what is this technocratic committee that's going to run the Palestinian territories as they stand? Netanyahu has said that he will not allow the Palestinian authority to be in control of that. It's very unclear who would be there and what could be agreed upon between all the different forces at play. So the road ahead is incredibly long, wildly complex, and really undefined. We may not see peace in the near future.

Leila, Malana, Allen, again for us in Tel Aviv tonight. Leila, our thanks to you. We start the day's other headlines with a temporary truce between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The neighboring nations have agreed to a 48-hour cease-hour cease-person. fire following days of deadly clashes. Tensions flared last week after an airstrike in Kabul, which the Taliban blamed on Pakistan. Ground fighting has since been reported at several military posts along both sides of the long contested border.

Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harboring armed groups in the region, which the Taliban-led government denies. Dozens have been killed, key border crossings remain closed, and civilians say the violence is taking its toll. Firing started from both sides. In our village, shells and bullets started hitting people's houses. Our request is for both our government of Pakistan and the Taliban fighters to immediately stop this war. Pakistani officials said today that Afghanistan had requested the temporary truce.

Taliban officials said the opposite, that the ceasefire was at the, quote, insistence of the Pakistani side. Kenya has declared a week of national mourning to mark the passing of former president. Prime Minister Raila Odinga. In his passing, we have lost a patriot of uncommon courage, a pan-Africanist, a unifier who sought peace and unity above power and self-gain. President William Ruto says flags will fly at half-mast and Odinga will receive a state funeral. Today, Kenyans publicly mourned the man they called Baba or Father. Odinga started as an activist in the 1980s and was frequently detained.

by the authorities. He later ran for president five times, and even though he never won, his populist campaigns and pro-democracy efforts gave him an outsized influence within Kenya and beyond. Rila Odinga was 80 years old. Back here in the U.S., the city of Los Angeles is under a state of emergency tonight in response to President Trump's immigration crackdown. The measure passed last night, and it gives the L.A. County Board of Supervisors more power to assist residents impacted by ICE raids in recent months. That includes providing rent relief to tenants and funneling state money for legal aid. Separately in Chicago, an order from a county judge took effect today, barring ICE from arresting people at court. It's become a common tactic

for federal agents who've been stationed outside courthouses for weeks. A federal judge in Montana dismissed a lawsuit today brought by young climate activists who tried to stop President Trump's executive orders on fossil fuels. Their lawsuit argued that actions to boost drilling and mining and discourage renewable energy will endanger the planet for future generations and violate their constitutional rights. The judge today agreed that the plaintiffs have shown, quote, overwhelming evidence that climate change will get worse under Trump's orders. But he said blocking them was a, quote, unworkable request that was not for the courts to decide. Boston mayor, Michelle Wu, is pushing back on President Trump's threat to move World Cup matches out of the city next year.

Trump made the claim while meeting with Argentina's president yesterday, saying the city had been, quote, taken over, though he offered no evidence of that. World Cup sites are worked out with FIFA, the World Soccer governing body, and not under the president's control. It's a point that Mayor Wu made to a radio program this morning. All of that is in conversation, and in many, many, many months of place. planning now. Much of it is locked down by contract so that no single person, even if they live in the White House currently, can undo it. In this case, it's a little bit of a, you know, there's no ability to take away the World Cup games. There's no real threat when it comes to saying cities are so unsafe that they can't host the games. Boston is one of 11 U.S. cities

set to host World Cup matches next year. In Oklahoma, the state's new public school superintendent says he's rescinding an order from his predecessor that required Bibles and Bible instruction in classrooms. The director from former Superintendent Ryan Walters had drawn criticism from civil rights groups and prompted a lawsuit. He resigned from his post last month. Today attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case applauded the decision, writing that, quote, the attempts to promote religion in the classroom and the abuses of power should never happen in Oklahoma or anywhere in the United States again. Stocks ended mixed on Wall Street today after a choppy session of trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped just 17 points, so almost flat. The NASDAQ rose nearly 150 points. The S&P 500 also ended in positive territory. Still to come. On the news hour, we hear from federal workers furlough during the government shutdown. And an Australian mining executive becomes an advocate for reducing industry's carbon footprint. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington and in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority signal today it could upend a central pillar of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, a move with the potential to reshape electoral maps across the country. The question at the heart of today's arguments is whether lawmakers can use race as a factor when drawing congressional districts. Justices must consider whether the 2024 creation of Louisiana's second majority black district violated the Constitution. Here to break down the arguments and the case's potential effects, I'm joined by Amy Howe of Skodis Blog and David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. So Amy, how did we get here? So this is a long and complicated story, even by the standards of, redistricting cases. So every 10 years we have a census and then states have to

redraw their congressional maps among others. So Louisiana redrew its congressional map and in 2022 it enacted a new one that contained one majority black district. The states out of six and the state's population is roughly one-third black. So a group of black voters went to federal court arguing that the new map violated section two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race in voting because they said it diluted their votes based on race. A federal court in Louisiana agreed with them that the new map likely violated the Voting Rights Act and it instructed Louisiana to draw a new map. So Louisiana drew a new map in

24 that contained two majority black districts. A group of voters who described themselves as non-African-American voters went to court, arguing that this map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, that it sorted voters based on their race. And a three-judge district court in Louisiana agreed with them. So Louisiana and the black voters defending the 2024 map came to the Supreme Court asking the justices to take up their case. The justices heard oral argument in March on the propriety of the map, they didn't decide the case by late June the way that they do with the overwhelming majority

of their cases and instead decided to hear argument again in the fall and asked the litigants to brief a new question, which is whether the intentional creation of a second majority black district violated the Constitution. And among some of the questions that the justices asked were whether or not the Voting Rights Act and the protections in it were meant to be permanent. Here's what Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. This court's cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases, but that they should not be indefinite and should have.

have an endpoint. And what exactly do you think the endpoint should be or how would we know for the intentional use of race to create districts? And so the topic that Kavanaugh was talking about there, the permanence of the Voting Rights Act, is that something that featured elsewhere in this argument today? Janay Wilson, who was the lawyer representing the black voters who were defending the map in this case, and some of the liberal justices pointed out that when you're talking about potential violations of Section 2, you actually look at current condition, so this is not a question of whether or not there's a logical endpoint. What are the potential outcomes here?

How might the justices decide to rule? So there's a couple of different outcomes. There's a couple of roads that they could go down. One outcome could be to say that Section 2 is unconstitutional, standing alone. Another one would be one that Justice Amy Barrett raised during the oral argument, which would be to say not that Section 2 is unconstitutional, but that the way that the Supreme Court had applied it in the past few decades is itself unconstitutional. There was some suggestion that the Supreme Court could, depending on the verb that you want to use, clarify or modify some of its decisions interpreting Section 2 in a way that wouldn't strike down Section 2. but would undermine the power of Section 2 and the use of race in redistricting. David, what are the implications potentially of this case and how might it affect the landscape

of redistricting around the country? Allie, it's hard to overstate the potential impact if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is the only provision really stopping a Republican legislatures in the Deep South from completely eliminating districts held by Democrats and in particular black Democrats. Already, we are in the midst of a gerrymandering war between the two parties where under the direction of the White House, Republicans in a number of states have redrawn or are attempting to redraw their districts to maximize their share of seats. They've primarily gone after Democratic seats in places like Texas, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina that are not

majority minority districts. But if Section 2 were struck down, then the robust number of districts held by Black Democrats across the South in states like Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, they could be eliminated leaving Republicans with 12 more House seats and really reducing the competitiveness of the House overall. And, David, it does seem like, however, the justices rule, it's going to make a big impact, but is any of that going to have an effect on next year's midterm elections? That's doubtful. And that's because we're likely to get a ruling at some point in the late spring or early summer of next year. By then, most states will have seen their filing deadlines close, and a lot of states will have held primary.

So it would be too late to alter the election maps. That said, if Democrats do take back the House in 2026, this could give Republicans an avenue to undo that with some margin, given that up to a dozen seats or more in the Deep South could be eliminated if there were no protections for minority-majority districts. And if there were a middle ground ruling, then a number of districts that are similarly unusually shaped alongside Louisiana's 6th district could be revisited in federal courts, and that could take years to adjudicate. Big day at the Supreme Court. David Wasserman, Amy Howell, thank you so much, both of you for breaking it down for us. Thank you. As the Trump administration throws its weight behind a national school voucher program that it says will give parents more educational options, critics point to the negative impacts that school choice is already having on public schools. Arizona introduced the first universal

school voucher program in the country back in 2022, and it may provide clues for what's to come. Stephanie Syde takes a look at how the program is faring. This may look like a typical school, but it's actually a weekly gathering of homeschooled students. Fridays are fun days. We really wanted this to be focused on enrichment. Hey, hey, homeschoolers. Hey, hey, it's Caitlin. Caitlin Redfield Ortiz, a former lawyer, and Brooke Bentley, a real estate agent, started Path Collective in 2024. Brooke and I have seven kids combined, and we've been parenting for over a decade. So we had met and found the best yoga teacher and the best chess coach and the best robotics teacher.

And so we really wanted to bring them together and have a fun day for our kids. That was led by expert professional teachers. The program is one of the results of Arizona's universal school voucher program called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts or ESAs. direct public funds to parents to pay for things like home education expenses or private or parochial school tuition. Over 90,000 students are currently enrolled in the state, up from about 11,000, before the program expanded to cover all Arizona students in 2022.

Taking ESA has been a real gift for our family, a real blessing, because there are so many things that my kids can do now that they might not have been able to do without ESA, that we can make, I can make their education curated to exactly my child's interests, their abilities, what they're ready for. The majority of ESAs are between $7,000 and $8,000. That money can be used toward programs like Path Collective, which charges $285 a month per student. Redfield Ortiz, also a former educator, started teaching at home during the COVID crisis.

And were there things about public school prior to COVID that you've been? didn't like that you didn't think we're serving your kids yes you know I was very worried about bullying in schools as very worried about school safety state superintendent of public instruction Tom Horn has long supported school choice which schools and homeschools are allowed to accept ESA funds from families oh there are no restrictions anyone yeah so I could start a school with no teaching qualifications and get money from families in Arizona. Taxpayer money.

If there were parents crazy enough to send their kids to you. The assumption, now this was the legislative decision, not my personal decision, but the legislative decision was parents are the ones that know best for their kids. Horne argues that school choice will force public schools to be better. I'm not talking about competition in the sense of schools failing. I'm talking about competition in the sense of schools failing. sense of administrators and teachers being motivated to do their best. And by and large, government monopolies are not efficient.

And or in the case of schools, they don't necessarily do their very best. Arizona students have long had a lot of options when it comes to what schools they can attend. But all of those choices haven't necessarily led to academic gains. Arizona is often near the bottom when it comes to student achievement. the nearly $1 billion ESA program has come under fire for what critics say is a lack of guard rails. So if we're talking about competition, it's just not a fair competition.

Raquel Mamani is a public school teacher in Phoenix and an organizer with Save Our Schools Arizona, which has been fighting privatization in school since 2017. If we're talking about using taxpayer dollars and healthy competition, then we should all be playing by the same rules. They should be accepting every student that presents to their door, just like in a public school. You should have clear and transparent accountability for how you use the money. Local news reports have covered various instances of misuse, and the Attorney General's office has convicted several people in connection with schemes to defraud the voucher program. Mamani says public dollars should prioritize raising pay for public school teachers. Arizona

also ranks almost last in the nation for per pupil spending. I as a teacher would love to see 90% of the funding being prioritized for our public schools. The Deer Valley Unified School District in Northwest Phoenix is an A-rated district. But even here, Superintendent Curtis Finch sees what he calls educational experimentation since universal vouchers became available. Often, the kids come back when the experiment fails. What we find is that that since they aren't doing the state standards, there's a lot of internet curriculum that you can buy that says, oh, we're following the state standards. When they come back, they obviously are not.

And they don't realize the pace at which the public school student is under for learning. When they come back, they're often behind. And so it takes more resources for me and my team. While the universal ESA program is intended to give students of all socioeconomic backgrounds access to more options, since its start, the majority of the ESA program's participants have lived in higher-income zip coats. More recent data has shown a slight shift to middle class areas. Ninth grader Xavier Dudley used to attend a charter school.

I had bad days almost every day, and I was always getting into trouble a lot. Using ESA funds, his mom Tiffany switched him to this so-called micro-school. It was launched by the black mother's form to create a supportive educational space for black children. This is a private school, and so without that ESA, I wouldn't be able to pay that tuition. And so it is allowing me to put him in this smaller private school setting so he can get that one-on-one attention that he needs, having somebody that actually looks like him that understands his thought process and help him walk through the emotions or what's

academic challenges that he faces. Here, the students learn online in a classroom, and the adults in the room are called coaches instead of teachers. If you look at the education system, especially out in Arizona, our children are not doing very well. They're falling further and further behind, and this is with our certified teachers. Do you think this is the best possible education that your kids can get in Arizona? I think it is the best for my children now.

I don't really think there is a one-size-fits-all when it comes to. to education because children learn differently. As more and more parents make the choice to find better fits for their kids, the superintendent in Deer Valley Curtis Finch says he sees school choice as another point of polarization. I'm the canary in the coal mine.

I can tell them what's gonna be 10 years from now because I'm living it. And the warning you're sounding is what? What are you singing, Canary? Yeah, yeah. The warning is that it's not good for our society. I don't care what it is. Anytime you take groups out of society

and they form their own systems, it's not good for society. And when we don't know our neighbors, where does that come from? That's coming from unplugging from the community systems. And one of them is public schools. After decades of debate, the tide is clearly turning towards school choice.

18 states have now followed Arizona's lead, expanding their voucher programs to be universal. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sy. others are working without a paycheck, and some may be out of work permanently after the Trump administration announced plans for mass layoffs, which have been blocked in courts for now. NewsHour has spoken to dozens of federal employees in recent days. Many won't risk speaking publicly. But others who are protected by their positions with workers' unions are sharing their concerns and frustrations about the shutdown and how long it's already lasted.

My name is Mike Gilletteley. I live in Tuella, Utah, and I work for the United States Department of Agriculture as an IT technician. My name is Yolanda Jacobs. I work with the CDC out of Atlanta. My name is Imelda Avila Thomas. I do work for the Department of Labor, Wage and Auburn Division in San Antonio, Texas. My name is Trika Henry. I work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and I live in Lenoxa, Kansas. I was trying to think of all of these words to describe what the last few months have been, and I just came to a four-letter word, hell. We're ready to work and take on that backlog, take on all that extra work that we've been handed, and then now we're put at a standstill.

Being a federal worker right now is, it's, sorry, I'm just, we are just really tired. We're really tired of going through this year after year when it comes down to the, you know, whether it be a continuing resolution or a shutdown, it's just we are not political pawns. We've got to stop treating us like political pawns. I'm sorry, Lisa. Obviously, everybody that I know is concerned about a RIF. I don't see how we can really cut. more than we already have.

Instead of us being able to breathe past one incident before we can catch our breath, there's another and there's another. And, you know, here we are. We're at the shutdown and the majority of us have been furloughed. I received my paycheck on Friday. It was a partial paycheck. Now I am in a position where I have to look at what's most important for me to pay now and what can wait.

husband is also not getting paid. However, he is having to report to work because he's an air traffic controller. It's serious every day. I think as each day goes by that I don't work, and even though my letter says guaranteed back pay, what's been thrown out there, I don't know. I'm concerned. I have already started cutting back. And that's something I did before they actually decided whether there would actually be a shutdown because something told me, go with your gut. We're like everybody else. I've got a mortgage payment, just like most other Americans. I have a car payment.

I've got a child who's finishing college. Cutting tutoring for my daughter with dyslexia. You know, it is necessary. However, it is something that at this point we have to save. I hate to even put on a pot of spaghetti too many days in a row, but, you know, you have to do what you have to do. I went ahead and I filed for unemployment and, you know, I'm sorry, but that's just humiliating. This is me not being able to provide for my family adequately. And I didn't do this.

You know, we show up to do our jobs every day and just Congress needs to do theirs. I certainly don't want to say, you know, say who needs to back down on what and who needs to compromise, but they all need to get to the table. We don't deserve this. My people didn't do this. We just want to work. Those were just a few of the federal workers affected by this shutdown. For a bigger look at how many workers are off the job, Lisa Desjardin's been piecing together the numbers, and she's back at the super screen to help us better understand.

Good to see you, Lisa. Hello. So walk us through this right now. How much of the government is actually shuttered and who could miss a paycheck? All right. Let's get specific here. And let's start with the core of the federal workforce. These are civilian workers.

These are the folks who run most federal agencies. Here, each figure is 100,000 federal workers. So altogether, you're seeing the 2.1 million civilian workers in our federal workforce. How many of them have been furloughed going through the agency plans for this shutdown? It's about 700,000. These folks are all staying home, not on the job. But what that means is, of course, most of the civilian workforce is still on the job. And this is just one chunk of what's going on in the federal government, because we also have, of course,

active duty military. That's more than one million troops. None of these folks have had their paychecks appropriated by Congress. That also is one pressure point that we need to pay attention to, but one reason the public may not have been feeling this shutdown so much is because, look at this, all of these folks here are still on the job. So one pressure point we're watching for is the pay of these millions of federal workers. Let's look at some dates here. Today is a key one. This is the day that the active duty troops were set to get their pay in their bank accounts. Now, again, Congress hasn't appropriated this,

but President Trump has directed the Department of Defense to make sure they get this pay. So that's something that lawmakers are not worried about right now. But let's watch next week, Omna. That's when these millions of civilian workers are to get their paycheck, and right now they will get nothing. That will be their first full missed paycheck

for millions of people. Lisa, I know you've been reporting on the mass firings as well. What do we know about how large they are and where they hit? Key questions. And let's start with some context. Again, 2.1 million federal workers in the civilian workforce. So the Trump administration announced Friday 4,100 layoffs. But wait a minute, over the weekend, they rescinded 800 of them reversing it. So this is the number as of now that the Trump administration says it laid off in the past few days. This is also the figure, these 3,300 federal workers that a federal judge today paused the firing of. So we ultimately don't know the fate of this group. This number may look small compared to the overall federal workforce, but this is a targeted group. President Trump has said he's targeting Democratic agencies. We haven't exactly known what that meant until now.

Let's look at the five agencies that had the biggest layoffs here, Treasury, Health and Human Services, Education, Homeland Security, and Energy. What do they have in common? They all have sub-agencies that are taking large layoffs in this RIF or reduction in force from the president. IRS, the Centers for Disease Control in Education, the special education and civil rights divisions. Big layoffs there at Homeland Security, a cybersecurity sub-agency that deals with information and misinformation on the Internet. And at the Energy Department, I just confirmed today, green energy programs are where the mass layoffs happened there. Again, the theme here is targeting from the Trump administration. These are where he and Republicans have policy and political disagreement.

some of these divisions being nearly eliminated. Omna? Of course, the government shutdown continues. Lisa Desjardin, thank you so much. Welcome. And for more on the politics of the shutdown, we're joined now by Democratic strategist Fas Shakir and Republican strategist Doug High.

Great to see you both. Good to be with you. So there is a real disconnect between the pain that federal workers are experiencing and the lack of urgency among lawmakers on Capitol Hill. How do you make sense of that gap? I think it's pretty simple. And it's that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

If we go back to the 2013 shutdown, Republicans said we have to fight Obamacare. We didn't have a strategy to land a punch, to win the round, to knock down our opponent. And it blew up in our faces. Democrats right now, what are they saying? We have to fight Donald Trump. It's not clear that they have a strategy to win the round, to land a punch, to beat Trump. And so we have this impasse where you have two parties that are essentially communicating to their base. everybody who was in that package you played earlier is caught in the middle of these politics

and both sides not only think they can win they think they are winning now that may be an impossible thing politically for both sides to win something but if there are no electoral impacts come November they're going to maintain this position and this is going to go on a lot longer how do you see it fast well the president's been sitting on the sidelines quietly and i think at this point democrats had hoped that he'd be engaged he had that one meeting that you remember he brought schumer and jeffreys in through some hats at them apparently and and did some sombrero memes after that meeting. And since then, has really not engaged.

At one point, I remember a few days ago, President Trump said, we're having negotiations with Democrats. And he quickly had to walk that back. And the irony of this whole thing is the Democrats have been offering a solution that works for him politically. You don't want health care premiums to go up

for 20 million people. Do you, Mr. President? We're giving you a way out. So politically, you can see that there's a solution at the table for him that works as a win-win, actually. And yet, he's not engaged on it. And I think he could, if the president does get engaged,

I think you could end this pretty quickly. You mentioned 2013, we should say. You were working then for then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. What are the biggest differences between now and then? In 2013, we were working our tails off. I remember the first Saturday of the shutdown. I got a text message from a friend home in North Carolina who asked me if I was enjoying my vacation.

And I replied with some language I won't fully repeat here, but I told them it was about 9.30 in the morning on Saturday. I was at my desk. And every day we were having press conferences and we were passing bills. Let's keep the Department of Education open. Let's keep the Department of Energy open. Mike Johnson has a very different Congress, a very different conference, and he's doing things in a different way. And I think he ultimately feels every time I see him doing a press conference, and he's all over the place, by the way, more than we typically see him. His message is a very simple and defensible one. Let's not hold the government hostage. passed this. Let's just move forward. We shouldn't do anything other than doing what we've

already done. And the ball's in the Senate's court. The interesting thing here is legislatively, the Senate throughout all of this, has probably been more productive in the past two weeks than it has been in the past year. Well, they've been present in Washington in a way that the House hasn't. And the politics fads for Democrats has changed dramatically considering what happened this past spring when they caught so much blowback for avoiding a shutdown. Well, they got the right issue. I mean, you think of the number one thing that most Americans are dealing with right now is unaffordability, cost of living. We're seeing it play

out in the New York City mayoral, which will propel our own d'Ithi to winning that election. And one of the reasons that that's going on is because they got the issue of health care costs are going to go up through the roof unnecessarily. You could have resolved this in one big, beautiful bill. They did not. Now here we are sitting on potentially

a very good, simple solution. I'm sure Doug and I actually sat down. We could easily resolve it, right? The solution is there. You just say you're going to reopen the government. You don't necessarily have to attached the ACA subsidies to the reopening of the government, but you agree that there's going to be a vote held right simultaneously after it, right? So that you'll reopen the government, you have a vote on ACA subsidies. I guarantee something like that is a simple enough solution that all sides could come together

on. There's a new New York Times analysis that looks at the way the administration is using the shutdown to push through long-desired firings of federal workers and to really squeeze policy and agenda items in Democratic-led districts. According to this analysis, more than $27 billion in halted federal grants have been in Democratic areas compared to just $739 roughly million in Republican districts. What's your read of this, Doug? You know, Obama did some of this in 2013, but it was sort of like a Coke Zero version of what Donald Trump is going to do and has done. And what surprises me about this is that the Democrats haven't learned some of our lessons.

When you have the message of fight before you have a strategy for what that is, in a shutdown, you give a president. more power. Barack Obama had more power. George Bush during shutdowns, whoever the president is gets more power of what they're able to do. So by having a message of fight, Democrats are giving Donald Trump a lot more power to do things that they don't want him to do. That should be a problem for them. What about that? From the Democratic side, I mean, this guy's already amassed power that he didn't have. He's been acting illegally in all kinds of ways, firing federal workers well before this point. So I don't think the biggest concern, under normal circumstances, you'd be concerned, oh, you know, we don't want to give the president

on due power. This is not a president you're worried about. So this is the one that you're more concerned around. How do I message to people who voted for you? I mean, you've looked at these districts. I think 80% of the ACA premium increase will hit places that voted for Donald Trump, states that he won. And you're talking to those people and saying, this president is not focused on you in your needs.

And we have a very simple solution on the table. I think the Democratic position on this bears well over time, by the way. At the end of the year, that's when the tax subsidies expire. If you're looking at the calendar of Congress, there's only about 30 legislative days left between now and then. So when are you going to solve for this, Mike Johnson? When are you going to solve for this? There's only a small period of time. I think the Democratic argument just gets stronger and stronger, especially as people get these notices,

that their premiums are about to go through the roof. There's a question I've been putting to Democratic lawmakers who come on the program. I'll ask you this question. Is there anything that Democrats can learn from the way that Trump administration has been playing hard, on some of these issues and apply it to how they might govern if they ever reclaim the White House or congressional leadership? Listen, I mean, using executive power, he has put the bully in the bully pulpit. And I don't agree with his values, but when you say he takes stake in Intel, he takes some stake

in rare earth mineral companies, he goes after university presidents, he bullies media companies know well. I don't agree with the values, but imagine if you had a better values orientation and you put the bully back in bully pulpit and said, we have certain outcomes. we need to improve for working-class people's lives. And I see the role of a president to assert it aggressively and to urge you, not acting unlawfully, but to urge you with my values and with my public argument

that I'm going to change your behavior. A lot could be done. And certainly, Trump has showed the way for hopefully a next Democratic president to say, you know, you've laid the table for us to act in ways that improve the lives of regular working-class people in ways that we wouldn't have done before. There is no off-ramp insight for ending this shutdown. They're not even talking.

the different parties, how long do you think this is going to go? It'll go past Halloween. For me, I think maybe one of the pressure points maybe when we get to Veterans Day, especially if veterans pay or pay for a military becomes an issue. But neither side sees a reason to back down right now. They both feel not only right in their cause, but righteous in their cause, which means there's no incentive at this point for them to move together at all. I mean, I was talking, you said, what did you learn from Trump? You took stake in Intel, right? You could you take stake in the United Health Group? Here's a company that's

depriving people of health care. You know, a lot of people are going to die in this year unnecessarily. That, to my mind, fix a united health group, fix a broken health care system. This is the path for Democrats to regain their footing on how you fight for regular working class people and carve into some of the support that Donald Trump has previously held because I think a lot of people are feeling let down. This isn't what I voted for. He has not focused on cost of living needs that I care most about.

Fashikir, Doug Hi, it's good to see you both. Thank you. This week, a group of countries may approve what's widely seen as the first carbon tax on the global shipping industry. The International Maritime Organization is poised to approve new levies on ships for their emissions. Payments would become mandatory near the end of the decade and are designed to get companies. to cut back emissions substantially by mid-century. But the Trump administration argues it's a harmful tax and is threatening tariffs. William Brangham has a look now at a key business player who's attracting attention

for his efforts to make that industry and others greener. Sailing into New York Harbor, it may look unremarkable, but the green pioneer is a ship with a difference. It's the first cargo ship partially powered by green ammonia, a carbon-free fuel that some could help decarbonize the notoriously dirty global shipping industry. That industry's traffic makes up 3% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than double the pollution of France or England. We can get sun, wind, water, or you get to make a money. That's it.

This vessel... Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest is the force behind the green pioneer, and he is a surprising climate activist. Forest runs Fortescue, one of the world's largest iron ore mining companies. But three years ago, he pledged to eliminate nearly all carbon emissions from his operations by 2030. As soon as we worked out that there is a way and that technology development was totally on our side, but we could go, if you like, fully green, we could stop burning fossil fuel. There are economically powerful, profitable solutions for you to stop burning fossil fuel.

So why keep doing it? Forest now travels the world, evangelizing this message, meeting with everyone from legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle to world leaders. That included a stop last month in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, where he publicly criticized President Trump's speech to the U.N., where Trump belittled the facts of climate change and efforts to address it. Climate change, it's the greatest con job ever perpetrated. on the world, in my opinion.

If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. I want to say to the President, you had no basis of fact to make that statement. No matter how many times someone must repeat a lie, it doesn't change it to a truth. It's still a lie. And I don't mean my comments to be offensive.

I think you will see the adoption of green energy simply because it's in the best interest of the American people. to have a lower cost of power, so for the same money, they can have a higher standard of living. At Fortescue, Forest is deploying the full suite of renewable technologies, including solar and wind farms, newly engineered battery-powered trains and long-haul trucks. The company just announced layoffs in the UK and Australia, and will instead outsource more from other countries, including China. Forest is frequently attacked by other mining and fossil fuel.

interests for his stance on green energy. He was also just mentioned in a defamation case brought by ExxonMobil in California, where the oil giant is suing the state and some activist groups he funds of smearing the company. Well, look, I just say to my critics, your criticism is fine. It makes you stronger. It's not going to change our course. We have everything on our side. All you can do is hide the truth. The truth is going to win out. You might delay it. But that's the best you can do. Ready to roll?

So how did a mining executive, a man whose past carbon footprint is likely bigger than some small island nations, end up a climate advocate? Forrest says it was two things. One, after studying for a PhD in ocean ecology a decade ago, he learned the true extent of the climate crisis. And two, the rapid evolution of green energy technology convinced the capitalist in him that he could make a difference and make a profit.

All of this ecosystem of creating 24-7 energy, but the cheapest in human history. Unapologetically green. Why green? Not because we're woke, but because we are ruthlessly good business people. And we are taking the best choice to create the greatest margin for our shareholders and our countries. Sailing his ammonia-powered ship into New York was another part of forest's clean energy pitch. He also wanted to pressure delegates who were about to vote at the International Maritime Organization, the IMO, on new binding clean emission standards for the shipping industry. The Trump administration has been trying to block them, arguing they would help China and harm U.S. consumers.

When I found that the U.S. were threatening countries who were going to vote for the IMO with visa, denials, with tariffs, with economic coercion, then I thought, I'm going to sail the Green Pioneer straight into the United Nations General Assembly City for Climate Week, and we're going to prove that green shipping is already here. The Green Pioneer, the little ship that can, is now sailing to Brazil for the next United Nations

Climate Conference set to begin next month. For the PBS News Hour, I'm William Brigham. Remember, there's a lot more online, including a look at the feud that's been brewing over House Speaker Mike Johnson's refusal to swear in Congress's newest Democratic member during the government shutdown. That is on our Instagram. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On behalf of the entire News Hour team, thank you for joining. us.